Dwelling Place

Guest (Male): Coming up today on the dwelling place, filling the fatherless void in our hearts.

Al Pittman: He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. In other words, if you don't believe, if you have not come to Christ, if you refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, you are voluntarily causing yourself to be orphaned estranged from God's love and you will wander the world without the father's love. You will be fatherless. It will be a fatherless void spiritually speaking in your heart. Jesus came not to condemn us, but to save us.

Guest (Male): Welcome to another time of in-depth Bible study and practical application on the dwelling place with pastor Al Pittman. Al is the senior pastor at Calvary Worship Center in Colorado Springs. If you're a parent, I'm sure you could use some encouraging words about raising godly kids. It's a tough job, isn't it? But God has a specific plan for us parents and he's always there for us in those times when we become frustrated. Here's pastor Al Pittman with today's study in Colossians chapter three verses 20 and 21.

Al Pittman: Kids run a tremendous pressure today, but so are fathers. In fact, Satan doesn't want fathers involved in the life of their children. You look at the way society is really, you know, we can do test tube babies and all this and pretty soon what do we women need fathers for? You know, what do they need husbands for? You know, we just go out just, you know, get up, you know, have a bunch of kids and artificial insemination and just you know, just have children and we don't what do we need a man for? That's kind of the underlying theme today in our society.

I don't know self-served society, I guess. I don't know what it is, but Satan doesn't want fathers involved in the life of the children. You see it reflected in TV commercials and in movies and sitcoms where dad's always portrayed as that out of touch boob, you know. He don't have he don't have a clue. He don't know what's going on. Fatherhood has been downgraded. You know, that Home Depot commercial where the wife's talking to the big strapping Home Depot guy about plumbing or something and the husband's over there with the plungers trying to suck the brains out of his head.

I thought, man, how degrading is that? I mean, I can't do a whole lot. I'm not a real handyman, but I'm not going to be in the store with a plunger going, how will this work? I'm man, you know. And the wife looks back at him like what an idiot. Or the 80T commercials, have you seen those? Or every time somebody kicks the door in and the alarm goes off and the wife wakes up and she the phone rings and 80T guy is big strong strapping guy always. Oh, ma'am, is everything okay? And you know, the husband's cowering in the corner with the baby going, fireman shows up, you know.

Ma'am, I'm glad you called, you know. And while the husband's standing behind the wife holding the baby going, you know. Doesn't know what to do, out of touch, oh, you know. And then you know, I mean, it doesn't mean that women can't do anything. Please don't get the wrong impression, but it's just the whole subtle message that men are not really essential. Fathers are not really essential in the home. We're just making mistakes and bumbling around. We don't really know what we're doing. Well, I'm here to tell you this morning that God places a premium on fatherhood, a priority upon the role of fathers.

And Paul is speaking here to fathers, commandment for them. And I believe it's because the responsibility, the responsibility of impressing upon a child's life a sense of what God is like, that God is caring, God is protective, that God is firm, yet God is loving. That responsibility is given to fathers. As one pastor noted in the story he shared, he he says this and I quote, he said it it has been said that a child cannot a child is not likely to find a father in God unless he finds something of God in his father.

Recently, I asked the preschool class in our Sunday school to draw a picture of God. I intended to use them as an illustration for my Sunday sermon. Toward the end of the class, the children were excited to show me their work. They came up with rainbows and men with big hands and finally my daughter showed me her picture, a man with a suit and a tie. I don't know what God looks like, she said. So I just drew my daddy instead. What an awesome responsibility. That's why Paul says, do not provoke father fathers, your children.

Do not provoke your children. In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4, Paul reiterates this and says, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Don't provoke your children, fathers, because you are a reflection of who God is. The first reflection that your child or first realization of who God is that you that your child will come in touch with. Provocation is not the answer. Threatening our children is not the answer. Paul says, don't provoke your children. The word provoke means to excite or stimulate in a bad sense or to nag as a habit.

Amen. I'm guilty. Sometimes I do that with my boys and God just says sometimes in his still quiet voice, back off. You're not teaching here. You're discouraging. And I have to come back and look at it a different way and and try to encourage my sons in a in a different way my my daughter who is married and away from home, but it encourage her in a different way, you know. Cuz you know, you get those phone calls from them, you know, especially from your daughters, you know. Dad, help. Well, baby, I like to help you.

But you're on your own now. You're married and you know, let me pray with you. Let me encourage you in the Lord. Let me share the word. Let me tell you God's there with you. You know, just encourage them the best you can. But you want to encourage them and not discourage them, not beat up on them, not not nag them, you know, as a habit. Sometimes fathers wonder, I don't know my boy, he just won't talk to me. Or my daughter, she don't want to talk to me. Are you nagging them? Is it because every time you talk to them it's in a self-righteous tone?

I'm always careful to be to I'm always sensitive to the fact that my that my children are preacher's kids. And they're scrutinized probably more than anybody in the church cuz you're the pastor's son, you ought to be doing this perfectly and that perfectly and and they don't always do things perfectly. They're kids. And I never want to put that burden on them. You're preacher kids. You know, act like you're holy, you know. I know you're not, but act like it. You know, I know I mean, I'm being a little facetious, but I I don't want them to ever have that put on them because it will discourage them and many preacher kids grow up to be some of the most notorious sinners because they learned they hate the ministry and they hate the God that their fathers serve because of the oppression that they've had to endure and live through.

We ought to correct our children, yes, fathers, but we are to use even times of discipline as opportunities to instruct and to encourage through the word of God. Bible says that God disciplines us we're his children. He disciplines those that he loves, but he always builds us up. He never tears us down even in correction. In fact, the Hebrew fathers were commanded. God is directing through Paul revealing through Paul that we as fathers are not to provoke our children because we're to instruct our children to train them up in the Lord. The Hebrew fathers were commanded by God to train up their children in the word of the Lord.

In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 to 7 in what is known as the the the Jewish uh there is the exhortation for fathers to train their children up through the word of God. Bible says, hear oh Israel. The says, hear oh Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and and shall talk of them when you sit in your homes or your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

He's speaking to dads here. He's speaking to parents. He's speaking but specifically speaking to fathers. Teach your children, command them and teach them to obey the word of the Lord diligently. And I like what he says here in his commandment. It makes so much sense to me and and you shall talk to them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Fathers, if we're only talking to our children, we're chewing them out, they're not going to be receptive to anything that we have to say even we want to say something good.

But I love the fact that in the course of life you're teaching your children. I don't know about you, but I we've never seen to really get a handle in our home on the whole family family time, you know, where everybody sits around the circle and looks up to the father just waiting to receive the nuggets. The nuggets that God has revealed through dad. Teach us, father, teach us, you know. I just so you know, I don't I don't get that. I mean, my kids, you know, of course they don't like to come ask me too many questions all the time cuz they know I've got I've got a sermon form for every answer, you know.

I've got three points and a conclusion and everything that I talk to them about. So you know, but but what works for us is that as we're sitting at the dinner table, when we're riding in the car, when we're walking around the mall, whatever we're doing, we'll I'll strike up a conversation. We'll see something. They'll notice something. Something that's worldly or carnal. I said, what do you think about that? What does the Bible say about that? Well, how do you think the Lord would have you to act? Dad, kids are doing this at school. Well, how do you feel about that?

What do you think the Lord would oh, not me, no way. And I said they're probably telling me what I want to hear, you know. But I believe them. They're being honest and forthright because they know that we we talk about it all. We talk about sex, we talk about drugs, we talk about the stuff we know they're talking about with their friends at school. We want to be involved and in the way in the course of life we're we're always finding a way to incorporate the word of God and to teach them. That's the way as fathers are to teach.

Why? Because you're leading by example.

Guest (Male): We'll pause right here, but pastor Al will be back in a few moments with part two of today's message in Colossians chapter three. But first, I want to thank you for being a faithful listener to the dwelling place. And we would ask you to pray for this radio ministry as we seek to reach the world with the gospel. And to do that, we could use your help. Would you pray about partnering with us financially? To join our support team, please give us a call at 844-221-3363 or visit our website at cwc cs.org. And we have a brand new address to share with you for pastor Al's podcast.

It's anchor.fm/cwc cs-podcast. That's anchor.fm/cwc cs-podcast. Now let's return to today's message in Colossians chapter three. Here's pastor Al Pittman.

Al Pittman: God knows that in the course of training our children, I don't care how much Greek, Hebrew, how much Bible you know, but in the course of training up your children, more is caught than taught. And you can say and quote scriptures all you want, but they're watching your life and how you live, that's what they'll follow. What we do in moderation is the saying goes, children will always do in excess. Well, here is I believe the the heart of the father-child relationship. That is that the father-child relationship here is a reflection of God's desire to have a relationship with mankind, the crown of his creation.

Children we're called the children of God, not the adults of God for a reason because we are under the covering of our father. And as the glory of a father is is is is a child's glory is their father, so our glory is our father. Jesus prayed taught us to pray not, hey, you up there, but our father who is in heaven. Holy is your name. He is our father. He is placed in us as children of God, the spirit of God that cries out Abba, daddy. We are not orphaned. We belong to the living God.

But the Lord demonstrated his desire to have a relationship, a child-father relationship with creation through the cross of Jesus Christ. And in fact, Jesus did not come in the spirit of Paul's writing here. He did not come to provoke us, but to promote us. In John 3 17 and 18, Jesus said, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. He didn't come to provoke us, but that the world through him might be saved to promote us. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.

In other words, if you don't believe, if you have not come to Christ, if you refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, you are voluntarily causing yourself to be orphaned estranged from God's love. And you will wander the world without the father's love. You will be fatherless. It will be a fatherless void spiritually speaking in your heart. Jesus came not to condemn us, but to save us. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, he said, the son of God became man to enable men to become the sons of God. But sin has alienated us from the Lord. There may be someone here today that feels fatherless or maybe you're struggling with the type of earthly father you had.

You found it hard to forgive and to let go of certain things. And truly our earthly fathers even in their best efforts in a lot of ways have failed us. But God who is your heavenly father, he's a father that provides a protection and love and caring that is perfect, that is divine, that is everlasting. You know, as believers you think about it, you can't use the excuse that well, you know, I'm this way cuz of my daddy. Well, the question is who is your daddy? When you think about it spiritually, it's God. And I'm looking to him for the resources that I need.

I'm looking to him to be my strength. I looking to him as my source of strength and and in my life. I'm his child ultimately. The father I had on earth was here temporarily, but God is my ultimate father. And I am his child and you are his child. Why do I share that? Well, because a lot of times sometimes believers fall away from the Lord and wander into places where they ought not to be and become estranged in a relationship with God and and for some weird reason we all do it. We feel like we can't come and tell God what's really going on.

And in fact, we think we're actually hiding it from God. I won't tell him talk to him about that because if he knows that about me, he won't like me. Well, news flash, he already knows. And there's great trust and love in the fact that we can come to him with whatever whatever we're going through, wherever we've been and confess our sin to him. He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There's no condemnation, the Bible says, in Christ. My dad wasn't perfect, but he loved me that way in the sense that he told me, son, if you ever do anything, never let me read about it in the paper.

That was his way of saying to me, you can come with anything. I don't care how gross it is, how bad it is, you can come and you can tell me. Now if my dad who was not perfect could love me that way, how much more does a perfect God desire for us to draw near to him even though we are imperfect. We have a father. Regardless of what kind of earthly father you had, you've got a father. If you're in Christ, you're not fatherless. He's father God who will never leave you, who will never forsake you.

As the Lord said in Deuteronomy, I believe chapter one, to the nation of Israel, as a father carries his son in the wilderness, so I carried you. There are things God has carried you through that nobody could have carried you. Daddy couldn't help you. Mama couldn't help you, but your father in heaven has carried you through. But oftentimes people even especially those I believe that don't know the Lord find it hard to realize that God is not just some far away entity that is impersonal, but that God is right here and that God desires to have a relationship with you.

There's a book titled the Whisper Test written by Mary Ann Bird and she shares a personal story in this particular book. And I want to share a portion of it with you this morning. She said, I grew up knowing I was different and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others. A little girl with a misshapen lip and crooked nose and lopsided teeth and garbled speech. When classmates asked what happened to to your lip, I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass.

Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me. There was however a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored. Mrs. Leonard was her name. She was short and round and happy a sparkling lady and annually she had a a hearing test. Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear that the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something.

And we would have to repeat it back things like the sky is blue or do you have new shoes? I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth. Those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said in her whisper, I wish you were my little girl. God always despite the deformity of sin, he is always whispering to the very depths of our soul. I wish you were my daughter. I wish you were my son. In fact, the Bible says that he wishes that none should perish, but that all would come to be his children.

To the rebellious children of Israel, the Lord God said this in Isaiah chapter 30 verse 15. In returning and rest, you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength, but you are unwilling. A disobedient child is out of order. An obedient child under the covering of their father is covered by glory. It's our choice. We have to be willing to come underneath the grace and mercy of God. Even though maybe we've blown it or whatever, we can still come underneath that covering of his glory, his righteousness, his forgiveness. He's there waiting to forgive us and to cleanse us, but we have to be willing to come.

An obedient child has to humble himself under the father in order to be saved, to be blessed, to be covered in the forgiveness and the glory of God. We don't have to be fatherless. That's Paul's message, I believe, that God desires to be our father if indeed we will be obedient children. God will be our strength and save us in quietness and in rest. But you must be willing for our God is indeed a father to the fatherless.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to the dwelling place with our Bible teacher pastor Al Pittman, the pastor of Calvary Worship Center in Colorado Springs. As we close things out today, we want to remind you that you can hear today's message from Colossians again at our website cwc cs.org. We can also supply you with a CD copy when you call 844-221-3363. That's 844-221-3363. And while you're at it, listen to our free podcast by going to anchor.fm/cwc cs-podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners whether it's a prayer request, comment or question related to the study. We want to hear from you.

Email us today at amen@cwc cs.org. That's amen@cwc cs.org. At the dwelling place, we pray that your walk with Jesus Christ has been strengthened by these messages. And we're grateful to those who choose to partner with us to see this ministry continue and even expand. To make a secure donation, drop by cwc cs.org or text the word give to 719-354-2778. That's give to 719-354-2778. You can also write to us at Calvary Worship Center 505 Castle Road, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80904. If you missed any of that, it's all available at cwc cs.org. If you're in the Colorado Springs area, visit us at Calvary Worship Center.

We'd love to welcome you this weekend. Join us at our west side campus or our creek side campus. You can find service times and directions for both on our website and we hope to see you soon. This has been the dwelling place with pastor Al Pittman, a presentation of Calvary Worship Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.